Euronext.liffe: Derivatives On FTSEurofirst See Very Promising Start To Trading

Euronext.liffe today announced a successful first six days' trading in the new FTSEurofirst 80 and 100 futures and options launched last Monday, 23 June. Total volume up to the end of Monday 30 June amounted to over 17,000 contracts, which compares favourably with the launch volumes of competing index futures and options contracts. Average daily volume in the first six days amounted to 1,788 lots for the FTSEurofirst 80 future and 889 lots for the FTSEurofirst 100 futures.

23 - 30 June 2003

Futures FTSEurofirst 80 FTSEurofirst 100	Volume 10,730 5,334	ADV 1,788 889
Options FTSEurofirst 80 FTSEurofirst 100	521 470	87 78

Fraser Cowie, Director of Marketing at Euronext.liffe said: "We have seen very promising volumes so far. Given that the contract is a week old we are already seeing very tight spreads of 1 and 2 ticks in both the futures and the options. The new FTSEurofirst contracts have seen a wide range of market participants from banks, market makers to the proprietary traders."

Matthew Haynes, Director at Starmark Trading Limited said: "The market maker scheme introduced by Euronext.liffe has resulted in constantly tight bid/offer spreads. Building confidence in the contracts will take time but the first week was encouraging. The recent announcement by LCH and Clearnet to merge further increases the attractiveness of the contracts with potential margin offsets between the FTSEurofirst, CAC and FTSE."

The FTSEurofirst Series is the new generation of tradable European indices designed by FTSE Group and Euronext after consultation with customers. The FTSEurofirst 80 represents the performance of the Eurozone and the FTSEurofirst 100 represents the performance of the Eurozone and the UK. The pan-European indices were launched on 29 April 2003.